Weather extremes linked to human-caused climate change

From Nature Climate Change, a real bona fide scientific journal:

The ostensibly large number of recent extreme weather events has triggered intensive discussions, both in- and outside the scientific community, on whether they are related to global warming. Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heatwaves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. For other types of extreme, such as storms, the available evidence is less conclusive, but based on observed trends and basic physical concepts it is nevertheless plausible to expect an increase.

Yes, it seems obvious, but now it's more than apparent. (photo: Lake Geneva ice storm this year near my home).

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Why NOT to fight about climate change "facts"

Do you think Rush Limbaugh is cool? How about George Will? They win the title in a new paper "Cool dudes, hot temps; the climate change battle will get us nowhere."

These characters are cultural "elites" used to getting their way, so why should they be worried about climate change or anything else? The lesson here: you can't win arguing "facts" with one of these "cool dudes." Because ideology trumps facts and their ideology has them feeling secure.

It's the "white male effect," those with power are less worried because they feel like they control their own destiny. So there's no point in arguing facts, it's ideology that has them blithely unconcerned.

From the writeup in BigThink:

What is valuable about this study is what it says not just about conservative white men, but about all of us. This research confirms that who we are as people, at really fundamental levels, has a lot more to do with the way we see things than just the facts. All of us, not just CWMs. And not just on climate change. And what that means is that arguing issues based just on the facts isn‘t going to get us very far, since the facts aren’t really what we’re arguing about in the first place.

Here are a few of the findings (based on analysis of Gallup surveys of public opinion between 2000 and 2010);

--- 14% of the general public doesn’t worry about climate change at all, but among CWMs the percentage jumps to 39%.

--- 32% of adults deny there is a scientific consensus on climate change, but 59% of CWMs deny what the overwhelming majority of the world’s scientists have said.

--- 3 adults in 10 don’t believe recent global temperature increases are primarily caused by human activity. Twice that many - 6 CWMs out of every ten – feel that way

So what is about CWMs that make them see the climate change issue this way? The “Cool Dudes” paper suggests that its partly because they’re WMs, and partly because they are Cs. The so-called “White Male Effect” in risk perception has found that white males between ages 18-59 are generally less afraid of things than white women or people of color of either gender. A famous “White Male Effect” paper suggested “Perhaps white males see less risk in the world because they create, manage, control, and benefit from so much of it. Perhaps women and nonwhite men see the world as more dangerous because in many ways they are more vulnerable, because they benefit less from many of its technologies and institutions, and because they have less power and control.”

Makes sense to me. What do we do about this problem?

The solution is obvious, though hardly easy. We have stop making climate change a zero sum if-you-win-I-lose battle. We have to frame the issue in ways that work within everybody’s underlying cultural/tribal perspectives. We have to realize that answers are more likely to be found, and solutions are more likely to be reached, if the goal is finding common ground, to one of the most serious threats humans - all of us - have ever faced.

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Who's winning the climate wars?

Enviros are stumbling in the war over human-caused climate change, and a new report by Matt Nisbet dissects some of the failures and recommends solutions. It's heavy reading for us eNGO types mired in the trenches.

A completely predictable explosion has ensued, with defensive attacks on the messenger.

If you're interested here is an even-handed summary and set of links to some of the back-and-forth, a more open-minded look at the issue of why no major action yet on climate change, and a plea to consider that Nisbet may actually have uncovered some real problems.

Overall, I think Nisbet's Climate Shift report is more right than wrong, and he's done us all a service with his Climate Shift analysis and follow-up. In brief, he uncovers the weak strategy that fails to win support, exposes flaws in the David vs. Goliath story we tell about why we're losing, undermines the claims of media bias, and scariest of all, demonstrates the strong liberal leanings that blind many advocates of climate solutions. Ouch.

I think we'll be hearing more about this in the next months.

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When sea level rise threatens the habitat of endangered species

Is it smart to try to protect a wildlife refuge against sea level rise? What can you do, build a dike? It sounds futile, but what if the refuge is one of the last remaining homes for a critically endangered species like the red wolf?

Refuge managers are facing these questions and some are deciding that they have to plan for a future that includes a rising ocean flooding vital habitat.

Some are trying natural strategies for reducing impacts, such as restoring natural processes that can slow the habitat loss. Others are planning for finding new suitable habitats on higher ground, where wildlife can establish as old habitat is flooded.

Either way, there's little doubting of human-caused sea level rise, just a grim acceptance and a plan for the future.

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Learning to love invasive species

Not every invasive species is bad; witness the outcry over the decline of invasive honeybees. Can we look past the horror stories and calls for eradication and find a reasoned view on invasions?

The new science of conciliation biology aims to find means to understand and manage invaded ecosystems when invasive species bring value.

Can such heresy survive? Is this a quirky, contrarian view that belongs in a small box along with climate change deniers and flat-earthers? Some biologists with more purist leanings find reasons to object, although even critics admit that it may be time to stop trying to eradicate aliens simply because they're alien.

We may see more open-minded consideration of invasive species in the future, as ocean acidification and climate change threaten ecosystem functions. Perhaps we'll come to rely on and even love invaders that replace the functions of keystone species lost to global change.

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Killer crabs invade antarctic shallows

Warming water near Antarctica has big predatory crabs on the move, threatening soft animals that have been protected by the cold for millions of years.

King crabs die below 1 C, so the cold 0 C to -2 C Antarctic shallows were a safe home for sea lillies, brittle stars, giant ribbon worms and molluscs that are armoured only with thin, soft shells.

Since the 1950s, when records began, the average temperature of the ocean to the west of the Antarctic peninsula has gone up by 1ºC, and king crabs appear to be moving into shallower water. If this is true, climate change may soon claim a set of victims, the unprepared and under-protected soft animals used to being insulated from harm by the coldest ocean water.

Oh, for the sheltering cold.

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Ocean fertilization won't work

"Give me a half tanker of iron and I will give you an ice age." Thus spake John Martin, famously and wrongly.

He thought, correctly, that iron can stimulate ocean plants. But he thought, wrongly, that this would make the ocean suck up CO2 and blunt global warming.

This was an idea with teeth, according to a NASA biography, because it took an oceanographic hypothesis and turned it into a techno-fix for a big social problem.

Now a new report for policy makers finds that the oceanographic hypothesis has merit, iron can fertilize ocean plankton. But the geo-engineering hope was wrong, this process can't capture enough CO2 to make a difference. From the report:

Lead author of the report Professor Doug Wallace from the Leibniz-Institut für Meereswissenschaften (IFM-GEOMAR) says: "The published findings suggest that even very large-scale fertilization would remove only modest amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 100 years".

Too bad, it would be nice to have a solution in hand, even though ocean ecosystems would be put at risk. Then, at least, we could do something if we all start to Sizzle.

I knew John Martin, and it was interesting to watch this debate unfold over the last few decades. I suspect he's smiling at this news. His comment spurred a great adventure in oceanography, something he would be pleased to see.

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Frozen fish help cool the planet

When it comes to fish, frozen is better. At least if you're concerned about climate change impacts, you should buy frozen. According to expert Peter Tyedmers: "In many cases, your better choice overall, from an environment or energy–related perspective, might be frozen product from afar, regardless of the distance."

I know this goes against the common belief that fresh seafood is better. It's time to stretch your mind a bit.

Fresh seafood is wonderful, especially when you're privileged to eat something that just came out of the water. But "fresh" fish shipped by air and delivered to you days later is not the same thing. The rot sets in as soon as the animal dies, and good chilling only slows down (doesn't prevent) the decline. Good handling and fast transport helps forestall the rot, but at what cost? AT THE COST OF WARMING THE PLANET.

Take one example. Copper River salmon shipped by air all over the US is an environmental abomination. Other salmon is just as good, and shipped frozen by barge it's better for the planet.

Smart seafood people know that properly handled and quick-frozen fish is actually better than so-called "fresh" fish that has sat on ice for several days.

Will we re-investigate frozen fish now that there's a new reason to be pro-frozen? I don't know, the "fresh" dogma is fairly entrenched. But we should.

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Fish spawning earlier in California's ocean

Warmer water thanks to climate change is coaxing fish to spawn earlier in the ocean off California.  Changes like this can sound like no big deal, but timing is everything when you make microscopic babies that will die if they don't eat in a few days.  What if their preferred food supply isn't growing earlier?  OOops.

Evolve or die, and do so quickly.

hat tip:  oystersgarter

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Your car just ran over my plankton

Ocean phytoplankton (tiny plants) are in a century-long decline, and climate change appears to be the culprit.

This is bad news, since we rely on ocean phytoplankton for oxygen, and food (after they feed fish). And, of course, we shouldn't be monkeying around with the ocean like this. Or I suppose I should say we shouldn't be human-ing around with the ocean since no monkey could squelch ocean productivity.

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Moby Carbon

Wanna stop climate change? We need to start a whale nursery and fill our oceans with whales. Not just a few, I'm talking 36 billion whales. I call it the "Moby Carbon" project.

Here's what it's about...

Whale removal from the world's oceans is a little-known CO2 problem, akin to deforestation. The body of a whale contains up to 9 tons of carbon, more than any living thing except for the biggest trees. Our human whale extermination program of the last couple of centuries has reduced carbon removal from the atmosphere.

Time to re-whale the oceans so they can die and sink and store our waste carbon! And I don't mean just get back to pre-human levels of whales, I think we need to fill the oceans with whales. According to my calculations, with 36,000,000,000 whales (36 billion whales) on earth, they could live comfortably 100 meters apart and effectively remove all excess carbon from our atmosphere so we could live combustibely ever after, burning fossil fuels to our wallet's content.

I'm going to look for financing to launch Moby Carbon, I'm sure I can find a friendly country that will let me do a whale nursery for a share of the carbon credits.

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Climate science opens up the books

Is global warming a hoax or a scientific conspiracy? 1 out of 6 Americans said yes, it's a hoax or conspiracy, according to a recent survey.

Climategate, the leaked emails from climate scientists, has fueled this doubt of global warming science.

Well, in response, something remarkable is happening. Scientists are beginning to open up the books on their work. According to the New York TImes:

A number of institutions are beginning efforts to improve the quality of their science and to make their work more transparent.

This is surprising stuff, scientists are notoriously reluctant to let the unwashed public into the inner workings of the scientific enterprise.

Is this the beginning of a change that will reverberate throughout the world of research, like the pioneering success of AIDS activists who won a seat at the table for decision-making on AIDS research?

Or is it merely a defensive move designed to quiet the furor over hacked emails that reveal the human side of scientists? I know many scientists who say nothing is wrong, that the only reason people doubt the science is because of evil doubt-mongers blocking progress. But I think it goes deeper than that. Scientists (and I am one, so I can say this) need to come down off our high horses and do a better job of dealing with the public. Don't get me wrong, I think climate change is real, it's proven, it's a threat, and we should act now to reduce harm.

If this is really an opening of the books on climate science, I think it will help build public acceptance of climate science and the fact of human-caused climate change.

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Surfing Greenland

Sandy beaches, nice waves, and warm water in paradise...it's Greenland.

That's right, warm subtropical water is coming to Greenland, thanks to changing ocean circulation. This is one of the real bugaboos of climate change, way scarier for me than mild stuff like pestilence, disease, and Al Gore saying "I told you so." If ocean currents shift, we could see big changes fast, and we won't like them.

Oh wait...the subtropical water raging through Sermilik Fjord turns out to be only 4C, that's 39F. Warm for Greenland, but still as cold as your refrigerator. Not exactly most people's picture of a nice day at the beach. Of course, blogfish thinks it's a nice day at the beach, like the day I swam West Port Madison and found a flock of pteropods on leg 23 of Swim Around Bainbridge. But that's another story.

Now for some real ice surfing, since I teased you, check out the totally nutzoid video below of surfing on waves formed by glaciers calving. Whoa.

Susty.tv » Glacier Wave Surfing: Making the Most of an Opportunity? Pro Surfers Ride Melting Glacier Tsunami in Alaska from susty.tv on Vimeo.

You gotta ask yourself, where would I find this stuff if it wasn't for blogfish.

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Watch out for the methane monster

Runaway global warming coming soon--if the ocean bottom starts releasing methane.

It's the scare story of the decade, and there's scary news just out. Ocean farts are leaking methane already, sooner than expected.

How does this work? The ocean bottom has methane stored as methane hydrates, stable at cold temperature and high pressure as found in the deep ocean. But only slightly stable. Warmer temperatures make the methane hydrates melt and the methane is released as a gas...ocean methane farts. Enough farts and the methane can contribute to global warming. And so on...and so on...until we're all melting. Read the book.

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Climate control

What if we save the earth's climate without the pain of reducing CO2 in the air? Who would support action? I worry that the idea would become a political football, sort of like health care in the US.

Climate engineering is close to reality, probably a lot closer than global reductions in CO2 production. Aerosol particles are being considered to shade the earth, and seawater mists might work to make clouds reflect more sunlight. Both ideas could be tested fairly soon at a reasonable cost.

Critics correctly point out that climate engineering is risky, but so what's safe about our current CO2 orgy? We're pumping up our atmosphere with CO2 in a massive and risky experiment already. It's time to be brave, smart, and active, and that means we should consider designed climate engineering instead of our current accidental climate engineering mess caused by our love of combustion.

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Get outta yer house, cuz I'm comin at ya!

I'm the big, bad climate change monster, and I bring big, bad things like really slow floods that bug the crap out of you until finally you end up with more than just wet feet (left). And this is Alaska so that water is COLD.

Newtok is an Alaskan village with 340 residents and they've given up, they're done, they're packing it in after thousands of years of withstanding some of the harshest weather conditions that humans tolerate. The residents of Newtok are moving to higher ground to escape flooding from climate change, if some way can be found to pay the estimated $130 million.

Who should pay? Newtok didn't cause the demise of their own village. But there's no way to tax the whole world based on CO2 production.

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Obama wants energy from ocean wind

It's like I wrote President Obama's Earth Day speech. In Iowa, Obama announced the death of Captain NIMO with a nod to blogfish:

"Captain NIMO is dead, and we're going to explore clean energy options from the ocean" he said, "and I'd like to thank the ocean blog, blogfish for leading on this issue."

OK, he didn't really say that, but it's almost like he did.

He did announce new regulations that authorize offshore wind energy leases. And the goal of the program is clean energy and green jobs.

Now it's time for ocean people to find a way to play in the new push for clean ocean industry, by helping solve problems rather than playing Captain NIMO. If we're worried about the acid ocean zombie plague monster, then we have to find a way to bring some ocean-based solutions to the climate change table. Otherwise, we and the oceans will be road kill in the race for solutions.

It's the new face of Earth Day, who will help find solutions instead of just pointing out the problems??

image: ocean wind energy, solution or threat?

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Southern Fried Screeds

If you want to know where to find two guys that look at things from the bottom, head on over to Southern Fried Science.

Now I don't like fried things, the south baffles me, and I once burned myself on a particularly nasty science, so there's nothing about this blog that attracts me. Yet I can't quite turn away. They're young and brash (I know I met one of them and I can tell what kinds of friends he has) but at the same time, they're not old and shy like me. They have stupid ideas even while not being very smart. But ultimately, somehow, they do that blog thing by frying up something worth eating.

For example...

First Why Sharks Matter fondles his passions by describing "5 things worse for the planet than global warming." Oh yeah, he thinks dolphins suck too.

Then the Southern Fried Scientist blasts off over "what the hell happened to the environmental movement?" He's wrong of course, with everything he says until the end when he comes around to being right. Now how did he do that?

It's the best of blogging, where people spout spume and after the mess has settled a bit you look at it and see the image of Darwin on a tortilla and go "whoa."

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Earth Day--store CO2 in ocean?

What is Earth Day? Happy celebration of planting trees? Yes, and more. In 2009, Earth Day poses a new challenge. It's questions like: should we store CO2 under the ocean? How we respond will determine our fate.

On one side, we can do NIMBY or NIMO and say: Not In My Ocean, too risky. On the other side, we might find a viable technology for reversing climate change by storing CO2 underneath the ocean.

How we settle on questions like this will determine our future. I think Earth Day 2009 presents us a challenge and an opportunity. Will we grow and change and solve problems?

Or will we atavistically look backwards for our models of problem solving?

It would be easy to look at things like banning DDT and say we need more of that kind of firm action stopping the bad people or bad things. But in this complex world, there are few if any simple answers and we won't be saved by a brave hero. This ain't no cowboy movie.

I don't know if ocean disposal of CO2 is a good idea or not. But I do believe that if we reject such options dogmatically, we're not likely to solve our looming problems and move forward into a better future.

So for me, Earth Day 2009 will involve a celebration and happy-making. And a redoubled effort to advance productive problem-solving as heart of the modern environmental movement.

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When the rivers run dry

OK, maybe not dry. But rivers are running lower over the last 50 years, a process that threatens to reshuffle ocean conditions in ways we can barely imagine.

If you're an ocean lover, you CARE DEEPLY about river flows...or you should. River flows matter in ocean productivity patterns and such problems as dead zones. And here's a chance to post that nifty photo I found showing a plankton bloom of my bit of coast (right).

An interesting side note, why was this article in the politics & government section of the paper? It sounds like science, but I guess it's likely to turn into one of those political footballs that gets kicked around (like climate change).

What's happening to make rivers run lower? Several factors combine to reduce river flow, including climate change, dams, and water withdrawals for human use. Oh, now I see why this isn't covered as "science." Will river flows become the next big partisan shouting match, so that hydrology is the next science to gets mangled by politicians.

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